Cons:

This year, 2K Sports' NBA 2K basketball is once again the hoops game to play. NBA 2K8 has improved upon last year's offering in almost every conceivable way, offering more game modes, flashier superstar moves, and an overall more satisfying gameplay experience. While the game still suffers from a few issues that could easily have been cleared up, the overall package remains well worth playing.

In the categories where it's strongest, NBA 2K8 is unmatched. The CPU intelligence plays a great game, and after tweaking the sliders a bit you can get an unparalleled NBA-style experience in the comfort of your living room. Teammates can be urged to get open, and play after play you'll be in awe of the incredible athleticism and superb animation that solidify NBA 2K8's place at the top of the heap.

I'M IN UR GAMEZ, CALLIN UR FOULZ

Some strategic aspects of the game work particularly well, like calling plays on the fly, while auto-substitutions could sometimes get annoying, so many players will probably prefer to keep those under their control. The awful foul calls you'll get will constantly have you tweaking those sliders as well. It's almost as if Tim Donaghy was officiating every game. Thankfully, this is correctable for the most part.

Visually, there's little to complain about, with player faces generally looking quite good, and with really nice bonus touches like the cheerleaders that come in during play stoppages, the unknown but much-loved guy that mops up the sweat on the court, and each team's incredibly enthusiastic mascot.

The Sprite Slam Dunk competition in NBA 2K8 is a far better offering than what's available in EA's game. The gather and trick system, entirely reliant on motions using the right analog stick, feels far more intuitive and user-friendly than its far too convoluted counterpart. We loved the ability to set up barrels, speakers, and even a car as props for you to dunk over, and it's a great feeling to finally get the timing and dunk combinations nailed down for when you're ready to take your dunking skills online for competition. The only annoying aspect of this mode that we found was that it takes quite a while to go from the introduction sequence to the actual gameplay, meaning it'll take you a long time to get that ideal first round if you're the type of player that likes to quit and restart frequently.

The online portion of NBA 2K8 is jam-packed with different ways to get more bang for your buck. You can join online leagues, including those that offer online fantasy drafts. Yes, Knicks fans can go ahead and snatch up LeBron James in the first round of their fantasy draft, sticking it to those Cleveland fans who got riled up about The King's love for the Yankees. You can challenge other players to slam dunk competitions, too, which is generally a whole lot more fun than playing against the AI, since smack-talking becomes a huge factor.

The commentary does a pretty good job of setting the pace for the action, and does an adequate job of keeping things fresh. It's funny how the announcer will point out some of the stranger antics on the court, like when it was pointed out that a certain player is "99% from that range" and how he couldn't believe he missed a layup. Neither could we.

NBA 2K8 is hands-down the best basketball game available, though it is facing very strong competition for the first time in a long while. There are some issues where it can definitely be improved, including a whole lot of missed layups, a very poorly constructed instruction manual which fails to impart any information that could be found in the game's setup menus, and an interface that hasn't been overhauled for years and could do with a large amount of tweaking and polishing for usability. Overall, though, this is the game to play if you're a hoops fan, and one you don't want to miss out on.